A Win Amp Question!

February 10, 2010 9:01 AM

A Playlist Question! Is it possible to use winamp to create a playlist that plays not just the songs you specify, but *parts* of songs you specify?

For example, the playlist might look like this:

Playlist item1: Song23, from 2.30 to 3.05
Playlist item2: Song88, from 0.45 to 1.15
And so on...

If WinAmp cannot do it, does any software allow you to do this?

posted by kev23f to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

iTunes allows you to do it by going into the "get info" dialogue, and altering the start and stop positions of each song. If you want to keep the whole song in your main library, do the start/stop adjustments to a copy you've made of each file.

Winamp may have a feature like this, but it's been a long time since 2003, so I can't remember.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:07 AM on February 10, 2010

I'm not sure about WinAmp but I wanted to clarify Jon_Evil's suggestion: Specifying a portion of a track to play will change that song's playback globally, i.e., whenever you play it you'll always hear just the portion you specified. As far as I know, there's no way to limit partial playback to one playlist. I mainly use that feature for stripping away "hidden tracks" from imported CDs, where one track contains several minutes of silence before getting to the hidden part (I never want to sit through that).
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 9:21 AM on February 10, 2010

This is what I'm saying about making a copy of the song. So you'll have two files in your main library, one called "song23 by artist X" and a copy of it that you called "excerpt of song23 by artist X." The files themselves will be identical, except that you'll change the "excerpt" version to start and stop at the specified time. You put the "excerpt of song23" on the playlist (and probably leave it unchecked in your library), and keep the "song23" file for when you want the whole song.
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:36 AM on February 10, 2010

(thanks for making me clarify that, by the way. I now see my earlier instructions were quite muddy)
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:38 AM on February 10, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. At least it *can* be done, but I'm not a huge fan of iTunes at all. It's hard to believe this isn't easily doable in winamp...

I'll hold on in hope for a winamp specific answer, othereise I will mark the few replies above as having answered the question.
posted by kev23f at 10:19 AM on February 10, 2010

Well, if you're going to be making copies of your mp3s anyway for that suggestion, why not just download audacity, make copies of the mp3s you want and just clip the files, then play them in any music player you desire?
posted by brainmouse at 10:24 AM on February 10, 2010

Response by poster: True enough. But in my mind I imagine being able to right click a point on the progress bar and then adding it to some kind of playlist/queue thingy.
Fingers crossed, at least I have a work around for now...
posted by kev23f at 10:30 AM on February 10, 2010

Best answer: Make a cuesheet and use Winamp with cueplayer. Details.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 12:09 PM on February 10, 2010

i believe KMPlayer can do exactly what you're looking for. i am 100% sure you can queue portions of files to play, rather than the whole file. i seem to recall that you can make a playlist with multiple portioned files, but am not certain. i'm trapped at work and can't do further research currently, though. give it a look and see if it'll meet your needs.
posted by radiosilents at 3:22 PM on February 10, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks radiosilents. I've downloaded KMPlayer, and although i can see how you can "set starting point" and "set ending point", i can't for the life of me figure out how to queue those segments of songs into a playlist. I'll keep looking at it, but if you have any pointers when you're free i'd appreciate it.

Also, i really like the cuesheet option, i never heard of that at all, lots to read on there, but it looks like a simple solution, that will work well with winamp. So, thank you, inspector gadget.
posted by kev23f at 2:06 AM on February 11, 2010